The Federal Emergency Management Agency building in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The nation’s main agency for handling disaster response and recovery is shuttered for the third time in recent months and its workers are on the verge of missing paychecks, as members of Congress and the White House remain divided in a separate dispute over immigration enforcement.
Lawmakers are raising questions about how the ongoing shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security is affecting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is housed within DHS. FEMA already lacks a permanent administrator and has been under threat of a major overhaul by President Donald Trump.
The agency is no stranger to shutdowns and keeps much of its workforce going without pay during a funding lapse, though several programs are paused until Congress approves a spending bill.
The longer the shutdown lasts, the more likely it is to have repercussions on FEMA’s staff, especially when thousands of its employees miss their first paycheck Friday.
Alabama Republican Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said she hopes that missed income will increase pressure on Democrats to strike a deal on the last remaining government funding bill for fiscal 2026.
“You think about the winter storm the South went through. Now you think of the winter storm that we just had. We clearly need this to be functioning and working,” Britt said.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy, ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said he doesn’t believe the Trump administration is “serious” about finding bipartisan agreement on guardrails for immigration enforcement.
“We’ve sent them multiple compromises. They barely respond,” Murphy said. “I think it feels like they want the shutdown to continue, because they are prioritizing continuing their lawlessness at ICE.”
Minneapolis shootings
Democrats held up DHS funding after federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in late January during a surge in Minnesota, just weeks after different immigration officers shot and killed Renee Good. Both were U.S. citizens.
Democratic leaders have detailed several changes they want to make to immigration enforcement operations, including a requirement that agents wear body cameras and do not wear masks.
Republicans have said they’re willing to negotiate with Democrats on some of those issues, but have requests of their own, including that cities and states that don’t cooperate with federal immigration agencies do so.
The two parties were unable to broker an agreement before stopgap funding for the Department of Homeland Security expired, plunging all of its agencies into another shutdown that’s dragged on since Feb. 14.
This marks the third funding lapse for DHS this fiscal year. The first, which affected large swaths of the federal government, lasted 43 days and ended in mid-November. The second shutdown was partial since some of the full-year spending bills had become law. It lasted about four days, ending Feb. 3.
DHS’s contingency plan says about 20,975 of FEMA’s roughly 24,925 employees will keep working during the funding lapse.
In general, any federal employee tasked with the protection of life or property keeps working during a shutdown, while those assigned to other programs are supposed to be sent home. Neither category receives paychecks until Congress and the administration come to some sort of funding deal.
FEMA’s disaster relief fund is somewhat unique among federal programs since Congress has granted it the authority to deficit spend; it cannot run out of money, even during a shutdown.
A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service notes that FEMA’s non-disaster grant and training programs tend to halt during a shutdown, possibly leading to “delays in awards, possible delays in grant drawdowns, and deferral or cancellation of training and exercises that support state and local preparedness.”
Staffing is also an ongoing issue for FEMA, not just during shutdowns but in general, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog.
“Recent FEMA workforce reductions may reduce how effective a federal response could be in future high-impact disasters,” it states.
FEMA didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment from States Newsroom to share exactly how the shutdown has impacted the agency and provide a list of which programs are running during the funding lapse and which are on hold.
Noem criticism
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine., said she’s apprehensive about how the shutdown has affected several agencies housed within Homeland Security.
“My concerns are that FEMA, the Coast Guard and TSA are all bearing the brunt of this shutdown, which is why it is vital that we get an agreement and get one fast,” Collins said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration, which protects the nation’s transportation systems.
Senate Appropriations ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said there were issues with how DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was managing FEMA before the shutdown began.
“Well, let’s be clear that Noem hasn’t been good about sending out any FEMA emergency grants anyway,” Murray said. “So I’m always concerned about how she operates her agency.”
Trump has spoken repeatedly about overhauling or even doing away with FEMA and established a review council to provide him with suggestions, though they missed their deadline last year and have yet to release their report.
Trump also hasn’t nominated anyone to lead FEMA during his second term in the White House, opting instead to use a series of people to temporarily run the agency who didn’t need to go through the Senate confirmation process.
Cam Hamilton, one of those FEMA leaders, said on a podcast released in mid-February there was “so much political volatility” during his time working at the agency, in part, because of Noem.
“The talking points were not coherent. I will say that my former boss was not as elaborate and sophisticated in team building,” he said. “So there was not an easy time understanding, what is the message, what is the platform.”
Hamilton worked as the senior official performing the duties of the administrator at FEMA until he was ousted in May after he testified before Congress he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”
‘We’ve had all this snow’
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a senior appropriator and Republican Policy Committee chair, said she’s not happy with the FEMA shutdown.
“I’m not comfortable with what’s shut down at FEMA, and it should put pressure on the Democrats to push this through,” Capito said. “We’ve had all this snow, we’re going to have other disasters, and we rely on FEMA a lot in our state.”
Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, ranking member on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said there is money available for disaster relief but that he’s concerned “whether or not people are going to be there to be administering” it.
Peters said he believes leaders at DHS, including Noem, are trying to make the shutdown more problematic than necessary.
“I think she’s trying to create pain,” Peters said. “She’s trying to create pain as opposed to trying to put in safeguards for ICE. It’s really pretty outrageous what she’s doing.”
